Nov. 4, 1964. After having spoken earlier in the night to a victorious Robert Kennedy, LBJ now talks with Edward Kennedy—to congratulate him on election to his first full term as Senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy’s first speech in the Senate was in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, last summer.
“The Jenkins story as it happened did not remain in the headlines for long. Within a few days after what had happened became public, the Chinese exploded their first nuclear bomb; the Tory government in England, which had been in power for thirteen years was voted out of office; and Nikita Khruschev was deposed.”
–Merle Miller, Lyndon: An Oral Biography. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980, p. 400.
October 27, 1964. A week before the election, Ronald Reagan gives a televised campaign speech for Barry Goldwater:
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
“We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
"We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.”
May 4, 1964. McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor, receives this memo about national security briefings for the Republican Presidential candidates.
LBJ Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, Volume 4, Box 1, doc. #66.